


Glass Houses

by CaffeineAddict94



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineAddict94/pseuds/CaffeineAddict94
Summary: Through everything, there’d always been lasagna.There was no bad mood that couldn’t be extinguished by melted mozzarella and warm tomato sauce (no matter how processed and artificial). Daria had come to rely on the meal, whether she wanted to admit it or not. The Morgendorffers were not a traditional family, yet somehow, they’d found something that worked. Chaotic work schedules, after-school activities, sheer unwillingness – none of it stopped them from being drawn to the dinner table whenever that pan was set down. It wasn’t homemade but it was right for them. She hoped that hadn’t changed.
Kudos: 8





	Glass Houses

  
**Glass Houses**

  
Through everything, there’d always been lasagna.  
  
There was no bad mood that couldn’t be extinguished by melted mozzarella and warm tomato sauce (no matter how processed and artificial). Daria had come to rely on the meal, whether she wanted to admit it or not. The Morgendorffers were not a traditional family, yet somehow, they’d found something that worked. Chaotic work schedules, after-school activities, sheer unwillingness – none of it stopped them from being drawn to the dinner table whenever that pan was set down. It wasn’t homemade but it was right for them. She hoped that hadn’t changed.  
  
It felt strange taking the familiar cardboard box out of the freezer when the situation was anything but ordinary. She considered abandoning the effort altogether. Preparing a meal felt impossible, even with carefully listed instructions. Simply looking at the box sent a wave of nausea crashing over her. None of the bright colors or pictures put her at ease. If anything, they only made the whole idea seem even more absurd. Maybe a pizza would be a better idea.  
  
Pizza was a solid substitute. It’d been there for her when many other things hadn’t. It was always dependable, just one quick phone call away. There was no hassle, no fuss, no painful memories. She wouldn’t have survived her first year of college without a steady supply of pepperoni pizza to aid her late-night study sessions. She reached for the drawer where she knew there sat a stack of takeout menus but she hesitated at the last second. The stubborn part of herself refused to give in to fear and anxiety. There was nothing crazy about popping a tray of food in the oven. She picked up the box again, determined to muscle on. She could do this.  
  
Preheat the oven to 400. Easy.  
  
Her fingers found the right buttons on their own accord while her thoughts wandered. Try as she might to stop herself, her brain refused to cooperate.  
  
 _Acrid smoke choked her lungs and stung her eyes as she made her way downstairs. The piercing sound of the smoke detector was all the incentive she needed to check in on how dinner was going. When her mom stayed late at the office, there was no telling what kind of chaos would reign. Sure enough, she found her dad peering into the oven, sheer panic etched onto his face as he stared at whatever he’d tried to toss together.  
  
“I don’t think insurance will cover more fire damage”.  
  
He jumped at the sound of her voice before he gave her a sheepish smile, “Your ol’ man’s got it covered, kiddo! Say, you like your chicken crispy, don’t you?”  
  
She looked past him to find a charred black mass of what she could only assume was the aforementioned chicken. She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief; at least her stomach would be spared from trying to digest her dad’s latest science experiment.  
  
“It beats salmonella”, she answered as she opened the freezer.  
  
Inside was a stockpile of frozen food, everything from chicken strips to mixed vegetables. The most prominent was, as always, the towering stack of frozen lasagna. She took out a box and placed it on the counter, trying her best to ignore her dad’s defeated pout.  
  
“Plan B”, she offered, not particularly good at the whole cheering up bit.  
  
“Who needs a plan?”, he smiled, already past his blunder, “Plans never work out the way you think”.  
_  
He’d been right about that, righter than he probably imagined. Certainly, righter than she'd given him credit for. For all of his mistakes and mishaps, he had some great advice. She wished it hadn’t taken her twenty-five years to realize it.  
  
“I thought you might be in here”.  
  
She wasn’t at all surprised to find Quinn sitting at the kitchen table, though her presence was anything but welcome. Her younger sister always had an annoying knack for invading the sanctity of her personal bubble. No matter how much she tried to retreat into her shell, Quinn would be there to forcibly yank her back out. She turned away from her questioning gaze to place the tray in the oven. Now, she had at least an hour to kill. What the hell was she supposed to do?  
  
There was no way she could lose herself in a book with how little she could focus and TV would be nothing more than background noise. She found herself longing for the comfort of her apartment, where she could vent to her cat and drown her sorrows in cheap, greasy Chinese food. Well, at least she had the food part covered.  
  
“I couldn’t take it in there anymore”, Quinn muttered as she gestured towards the dining room, “Everyone’s being so weird, even Mom”.  
  
Part of the Barksdale clan was assembled at the dining table, where they'd been for the better half of the afternoon. Daria had been able to avoid any questioning or scrutiny by retreating to her old bedroom, much like she had during her adolescence. Quinn, unfortunately, didn't have the luxury. She was dragged into the scene by their cousin, Erin, and she'd been stuck there ever since. How she'd finally managed to weasel herself away remained a mystery.  
  
"They're going on and on about nothing. Like, who cares?"  
  
Quinn was wounded, that was obvious by the set of her mouth and the furrow of her brow. She looked worse for wear, her Adidas tracksuit fashionable but wrinkled beyond belief. She'd never normally be caught dead in something that wasn't freshly ironed and stain-free but this wasn't a typical day. Unfortunately, Daria had nothing to offer her but a weak shrug. What could she say that would really make a difference? She didn’t like empty words – all the worthless phrases and tired remarks that people felt obligated to blurt out. She'd heard enough of those over the past day and a half. Quinn deserved more than that but she wasn’t in the right place to help. She made a living through her words but it was easier to write than it was to confront the demons head on. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever have the courage.  
  
“Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time for a drunken brawl”.  
  
It was a truth masked as a joke – a poor one at that. There was no telling what would happen once alcohol started flowing around the Barksdales and the possibility of a fist fight was all too real. She almost wished someone would bust out the wine; at least that’d give her something else to focus on. There was so much anger and frustration brimming below the surface, so many unanswered questions. Maybe a bit of outlandish drama was what she needed to stop stewing in her feelings.   
  
“Seriously?”.  
  
She could understand Quinn's annoyance and she too would've loved to point the finger at someone. She wanted to blame her mom’s intense schedule, her family’s lack of support, something… _anything_ but herself. The entire situation had produced a mess so large and ugly that she couldn’t even begin to make heads or tails of it. She had no choice but to tell herself it was far too complicated to unpack. Nobody else seemed willing or able to do the work and she was in no position to tackle it on her own. It was unsatisfying but there was nothing more to be done.  
  
“Damn it, Daria! I expect this from them but not you!”  
  
Quinn’s cheeks were flushed almost as red as her hair, anger flashing through her eyes. Quinn was desperate for closure, for some sort of consolation. She wore her heart on her sleeve and every slight hit her hard. This was something so heavy and soul-crushing that she could only imagine how tough it was for her to handle. Daria felt for her but she couldn’t bring herself to open that door. She’d spent the past few days putting a stranglehold on her emotions, refusing to let herself be unguarded. She didn’t so much as shed a tear, opting instead to focus on the here and now. That was something she and her mom had in common, something that Quinn would never understand. They couldn’t afford to breakdown, to crumble. Someone had to be there to hold the pieces together when nobody else could. Somebody had to take charge, hold the reins. Somebody had to be whole.  
  
As much as Quinn might've wanted it, they weren't the kind of family that banded together in times of hardship. They were the kind that reinforced the walls to keep themselves stable.   
  
“And what did you expect from me?”, she was angry too but there was no hint of it in her voice, “A performance?”  
  
“No, I expected you to be you. Dad’s dead and you know this is bullshit. We should say something”.  
  
“Say what, Quinn?”  
  
She looked at her sister then, at the redness around her eyes and the streaks of tears on her cheeks, and felt the first cracks start to form. She didn’t want to uncover old wounds and she definitely didn’t want to hash out all the events that led up to their dad’s untimely death. She was doing her best to block it all out. It sounded terrible, maybe it was, but it was all she knew how to do. Once the funeral was over, she’d be thrust back into the real world. She didn’t have time to grieve.  
  
"Should we yell at Mom for not being there when he was passed out on the floor, paralyzed? Is that what you think will solve the problem?"  
  
She was in no mood to confront anyone in her family, least of all her mom. She may have been putting on a brave face but there was no doubt in Daria's mind that she was every bit as torn up as Quinn was. It wasn't fair to heap blame upon her, especially when she was probably running through that night in her head - judging her each and every action. What good would it do for her daughters to drive another knife in her back?   
  
“She’s in there talking about Erin’s new baby! She hasn’t even mentioned Dad since we got home. You think that’s okay?”  
  
Nothing was okay, not anymore. Nobody knew what to do and Quinn's refusal to understand that what she wanted wasn't law rubbed Daria the wrong way. She knew Quinn was only trying to cope, that she - like everyone else - had her own way of handling stress...but she didn't need to be roped into it.   
  
“When’s the last time you came to visit?”  
  
“…What?”  
  
“When’s the last time you called?”  
  
“I…”, she wavered, “Well, I…"  
  
Daria wasn't trying to make her feel any worse but she needed her to understand the reality of what had happened. There was no one person to blame, no one behavior that had sent everything crashing down. It was a culmination of events, some of which they themselves had a hand in. She didn't want to think about how she'd ran to New York City straight from Boston, desperate to be free from her parents...but it'd happened. She'd done her best to carve a niche for herself, determined to do things on her own. She wanted her own life, separate from them. When it really came down to it...  
  
“I was embarrassed by him”, she started, a lump beginning to form in her throat, “I hated when he would call to check in on me. I started deleting his voicemails. I never talked about him. It was like he was already dead”.  
  
She hated to admit such an ugly truth but Quinn had wanted her to be real, hadn’t she?  
  
She would go about her days, forgetting about her dad's existence. She'd often forget his birthday, Father's Day, anniversaries. She'd brushed it all off as unimportant, reminding herself that she had too many things to keep track of. Could he really blame her for not sending some cheap card? He'd never mentioned it which helped her to absolve herself of any guilt. At least, for a moment.   
  
“Daria…”  
  
“He called me a week before he had the stroke. I spent the whole conversation thinking of ways to get off the phone. When I finally hung up, I thought, ‘thank god that’s over’. I don’t even remember what he said”.  
  
He'd been excited about something, eager to share his good news with her so she could share in his happiness. All she'd done was play Tetris while his voice was at her ear, like the annoying buzzing of a fly. Every time they spoke, she was reminded of all the ranting and raving he'd done throughout the years. Talks of Mad Dog, of Buxton Ridge, of his terrible childhood. Stories that she'd come to find tiresome and boring. She saw her dad not as a man that had managed to build a life for himself despite the struggles but as a person who was stuck in the past, refusing to move on. He'd bravely shared parts of himself that others wouldn't dream of, unembarrassed by strange looks or biting comments. Her dad was the kind of person that embraced who he was, inside and out. Instead of celebrating that, admiring it, she'd thought him a fool. He was eccentric and kooky, too weird and too strange for her to explain to other people. She'd gone out of her way to make sure her boyfriend didn't meet him, despite her dad’s obvious desire to be involved in her life. She’d never have that opportunity again.  
  
“He loved us, all of us, and we never took the time to appreciate it”, she exhaled sharply, “I never did”.  
  
Quinn was silent for a moment and, at first, Daria was sure she’d disagree. Nobody wanted to think about the times they were selfish, the times they let people down, the times they could never fix. It was better to pretend you’d done everything right. She expected Quinn to yell at her, to tell her that she was wrong. Instead, she nodded.  
  
“…I didn’t call much”, Quinn whispered, “I never even really thought about it. Dad was just…Dad. I never tried to understand him. He was always so- “  
  
“Weird”, Daria filled in, “So is everyone else”.  
  
She saw a lot of her dad in herself, more so lately than ever before. It was easy to overlook some of her own quirks, to dismiss them as nothing. She liked her space sparsely furnished and organized, priding herself on keeping her tiny apartment clean and tidy. Her father was much the same, choosing to focus on quality rather than quantity. She had an affinity for history but it was her dad who'd fostered her love of it, introducing her to war documentaries and recommending books. It was her dad who'd accepted her when it felt like nobody else would, no matter how difficult it was when she was a kid. She owed a lot to him, more than she could express. He may have been weird but he was _her_ dad.   
  
The oven timer chose that moment to interrupt and maybe that was for the best. She wasn't sure how much longer she could tumble down the rabbit hole before she got too dizzy. She moved to gather some plates but Quinn was already a step ahead of her. The two of them fell into the roles they knew well, working on making sure the table was set for dinner. As she cut the lasagna into manageable portions, she couldn’t help but bask in the normalcy of it. Nothing was resolved yet and she had plenty to reflect on for the next few hours but, for right now, this was enough. 


End file.
